Global diversity and biogeography of potential phytopathogenic fungi in a changing world

Phytopathogenic fungi threaten global food security but the ecological drivers of their global diversity and biogeography remain unknown. Here, we construct and analyse a global atlas of potential phytopathogenic fungi from 20,312 samples across all continents and major oceanic island regions, eleven land cover types, and twelve habitat types. We show a peak in the diversity of phytopathogenic fungi in mid-latitude regions, in contrast to the latitudinal diversity gradients observed in aboveground organisms. Our study identifies climate as an important driver of the global distribution of phytopathogenic fungi, and our models suggest that their diversity and invasion potential will increase globally by 2100. Importantly, phytopathogen diversity will increase largely in forest (37.27-79.12%) and cropland (34.93-82.51%) ecosystems, and this becomes more pronounced under fossil-fuelled industry dependent future scenarios. Thus, we recommend improved biomonitoring in forests and croplands, and optimised sustainable development approaches to reduce potential threats from phytopathogenic fungi. Phytopathogenic fungi threaten global food security but their global diversity and biogeography are underexplored. Using more than 20,000 globally distributed samples, this study builds a global atlas of phytopathogenic fungi, and predicts that that their diversity and invasion potential will increase globally by the end of this century, especially in forest and cropland ecosystems.

Automated summary

This study builds a global atlas of phytopathogenic fungi using over 20,000 globally distributed samples, and predicts that their diversity and invasion potential will increase globally by the end of this century, especially in forest and cropland ecosystems.